Monday’s Random Thoughts

When I do these posts that don’t have ballroom as a main theme, I experiment with tags. I kind of want to put the main points in the tags but sometimes one word isn’t enough. It is funny to see who bites at the various posts and I often wonder if they really read them or just automatically “like” based on the tags. Yesterday, my post was all about why work sucks for me right now but a couple of the “likes” were from people who run sites with tips about job searches and the like. Maybe that was just a hint but I’m not really looking a new “career”.

Do you used Linked In? I have no idea why I signed up for it but I’ve got a little profile that I don’t do anything with. It has brought me in contact with a few people I knew years ago but that’s about it. I’ve decided I’m not really a fan of most of the people who use it. Lots and lots of people linking to posts by the various “thought leaders” and trying to prove by extension that they are up on the latest trends. There is just a part of it that seems so phony but to each his own I guess.

And business trends are like nutrition trends. We are constantly going back and forth about what is “good” for you. Butter was bad so we use margarine but that’s a trans fat which is even worse. Fat is bad, eat more carbs. No, carbs are bad and so on. Business trends are really the same way. Part of our business went to an “open office” concept because it was supposed to increase collaboration because all the top tech companies do it. Except that now studies suggest it really doesn’t and it lead to other problems because a lot of people (read introverts) hate the open office concept. I read about one company that came up with a hybrid with a mix to allow people to go where they feel comfortable. Somehow, trends that make sense like that never seem to take off.

Yesterday was National Ice Cream Day and I didn’t get an invitation! Seriously bummed out. Ice cream is the best. We’ve got a little shop down the road from us that is one of the top rated places in the city. Not sure they were doing anything to celebrate the day but I’ll never know because we ended up not going yesterday. Hate it when I miss out on a party.

We went to the store I told you was closing. It was sad. They had things marked 40% off and, of course, it was busier than it normally was. We saw our cashier who said they just needed 1000 more customers like us. Actually felt a little bad picking over the shelves but we wanted to buy some things that we get there that we can’t find anywhere else.

So I’ll finish this rant responding to some article that came across my browser the other day. The story was about women in a relationship who make more than men and the tone of the article was, as you’d expect, how it is such a blow to the male ego and how relationships like that are doomed to failure and on and on.

Now, this type of thing has been popping up for years and I honestly thought we were past this and that it wasn’t a thing anymore but it seems to get recycled from time to time. I will admit that I can’t speak for 100% of men but I’ve got a sample size of 4 (including me) in my circle where the wife is the primary breadwinner and those marriages are just fine. We are the only couple with no kids so I’ve continued to work. In two of the cases, the man left the workforce to take care of the house and kids and it never caused any problems.

Its probably because I just don’t talk about it or maybe I don’t travel in the right circles but I’ve never faced what some of these articles said I should be facing. My wife runs her own business and we could get by on her salary alone. I don’t know where they find the men in these articles but it has never made me feel like “less of a man” because my wife earns more than I do.

Frankly, the only real stress it has ever created is when she gets stuck in a meeting on a day I have an early dance lesson and she was going to cook dinner. So I get home and we have to adjust. That’s really about it.

The article had a section titled “Why is this still an issue in 2018?” Well maybe it really isn’t. Maybe you had your mind made up as to what kind of an article you wanted to write and then just found some examples to support it. I suppose it could really still be an issue for some and maybe I’m just way down on the “male ego” scale but that seems hard to believe.

Sorry, didn’t mean to go off on a tangent there. It just bugs me when I read an article that purports to describe my situation but is totally divorced from my reality. And, with that, I’ll stop rambling now and go find something else to do.